Justice at last for slain tourist Ethan Williams but New York is still in his debt

Thursday was 93-degree New York at its most relentless.Hung-over Knicks fans collided on the morning subway with tourists in soccer jerseys coming in for the World Cup.  For the 50 or so people in a cool Brooklyn courtroom, the delirium outside was nonexistent.They remained anchored to the horrors of 2020, and the city’s 47% spike that year in murders.  The proceeding was straightforward: Judge Deepa Ambekar sentenced 30-year-old William Freeman to 18 years in prison on a manslaughter plea, for fatally shooting Ethan Williams, age 20, in the early morning of Oct.

24, 2020, as Williams sat on a Bushwick stoop with friends. Freeman hadn’t targeted Ethan: He shot — eight times! — toward the group on the stoop, because he thought a rival gang member was there.  It took more than two years of NYPD work — and a traffic stop over a minor violation — to make an arrest.  The courtroom spectators neatly divided themselves: on the left benches, the killer’s family and friends, many wearing blue-and-orange Knicks t-shirts.  On the right, in crisp workplace attire, were 25 out-of-towners who had flown in to support Ethan’s parents, brother and girlfriend as they spoke in court.  They came at their own expense, because Ethan himself was a tourist.  A first-time visitor to New York, Ethan had arrived from Indianapolis for a skateboarding tournament and to see the sites featured in his favorite Spider-Man films, his father Jason told the courtroom.  Ethan, an aspiring filmmaker, saw the city as a “cinematic playground ..

.to come to New York for the first time was a big deal,” Jason said. But mostly he wanted to meet people, which is why he was sitting on the Brooklyn stoop of his AirBnB.  Jason told Ethan what any nervous parent tells his kid: “The last time I texted to him  .

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was keep your head on a swivel.New York isn’t home.”  Instead, as Jason told his son’s killer ...